


I feel it too

by cassanabaratheon



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/F, Mentions of miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 10:18:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5123918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassanabaratheon/pseuds/cassanabaratheon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I do not think it was meant maliciously but it was careless, the reminder that I am not a mother.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I feel it too

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laurentia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurentia/gifts).



> Post 6x04 AU.

“I dunno know why you even bother to go there anymore. You only come back upset or angry. Or both.”

Rosamund sighed warily, brushing hair back off her forehead before tucking her arm beneath her head on the pillows.

 “I’m not upset,” she murmured and heard Vera huff in disbelief.

“Fine,” the other woman snapped and rolled onto her back to stare at Rosamund’s ceiling, the pleasurable aftermath was souring fast.

She hated it when Rosamund shut her out, that when she had been kissing her, touching her, fucking her, she wasn’t wholly there, a part of her distant. She hated it even more that she cared that much but, damn it, she did! Lying to others didn’t matter to either of them but to do it to each other… Vera felt hurt which only fanned her annoyance further.

Rosamund sat up, tugging the sheets to her chest and glanced at Vera who was scowling and avoiding her eyes.

“Vera, darling…” She lightly stroked her lover’s arm to placate her but she was shrugged off and she removed her hand. She had nothing else to follow on from that and she let the silence fall in the place of words for a minute or so, deciding between speaking or avoiding this conversation altogether. This was not how she planned her afternoon in bed with her.

She exhaled slowly.

“This business with the hospital…” Rosamund shook her head, red curls bounced lightly. “Mama cannot accept that families like ours no longer have such absolute power. She told me that my great-grandchildren would not thank me for the State being more in control in the future if I sided in favour for the takeover of the hospital,” she gave a little scoff as if to pass it off as nothing but her voice sounded strained. “I promptly reminded her that my choice would have no such repercussions as I had no children to have grandchildren from.”

Vera felt her heart constrict at her words and she glanced at her, scowling fading. She looked so bloody dejected and she knew well enough that wound that the Dowager had prodded at so thoughtlessly.

“I do not think it was meant maliciously but it _was_ careless, the reminder that I am not a mother.” Rosamund pulled her knees to her chest, resting her head on the side on them so she could watch Vera.

“Mothers can be cruel sometimes,” Vera said after a while, her voice low in thought.

In the silence that followed, Rosamund’s eyes travelled down Vera’s form to where Vera’s hands were lying over sheets above her abdomen. In her mind’s eyes she saw the faint silvery lines, the marks on her skin which had come from being stretched to accommodate the growing life within her. She felt a keen pang of envy that she had had that when she had remained so empty. Yet, no sooner had those thoughts entered her mind, she was instantly suffused with shame. No, she could not resent Vera for that, not when she had miscarried at seven months and all she had left were those mocking lines.  Vera had told her this one night, her face stony and voice impassive but her eyes, God those eyes, they had been burning with such distress and fury, at herself, at her old God (who she still could not completely renounce), and it horrified Rosamund. There was nothing to begrudge in that.

She leaned over, propped up on one hand as she gently cupped her face with the other, causing Vera to blink in surprised. She kissed her slowly, sweetly, to dull the sorrow, hers and her own. Vera shifted underneath and Rosamund lay beside her, curling her arm over chest, tucking her head into the crook of her neck, breathing her in. She smelt of the rose water she dabbed behind her ears, taken from Rosamund’s dresser so long ago that she hadn’t bothered to ask for it back, and of sex. She pressed her lips against her throat. Vera squirmed and Rosamund smiled.

“It is not all bad,” she said after a while, drawing lazy, looping patterns across Vera’s shoulder. “I enjoy seeing the house, Cora, of course, and Edith-”

“Who practically lives here,” Vera added dryly.

“I am hoping that she will come to be in London more permanently in time.”

“Not here?” There was a note of alarm in Vera’s voice.

Rosamund shook her head with a small chuckle. “No, not here. She has that apartment going to waste and it would give her all the freedom to actually live her life.”

Vera nodded idly, not truly caring what Rosamund’s niece did as much as it didn’t affect her. Not that she disliked her; in fact, she didn’t half-mind the girl, pleasant as she was, and Rosamund had a particularly soft spot for her, but there were limits.

She curled a lock of Rosamund’s hair around her finger, winding and unwinding slowly, a habit of hers, before she kissed the top of her head gently and that action alone caused Rosamund’s heart to flutter in her chest. She snaked her hand down to squeeze her hip lightly in response before tracing patterns there too. Vera felt the way the word burned across her skin when she realised what it was – the very same word she had felt Rosamund write once before elsewhere on her body, when she thought she wasn’t paying attention, starting across those lines on her stomach. The cursive four letters made her breathing shallow, stopping it all together as Rosamund’s hand crept up her chest and she wrote it above the thundering beat of her heart, the ‘e’ curving up on her breast. Then she pressed her palm down, as if to sear it there, and dared to glance up to find Vera staring at her in half-wonder, a faint trace of colour rising on her cheeks when their eyes met.

The suspended pause was eventually broken when Rosamund shifted her position, leaning up on her left forearm so that she was half-risen above her.

“You’re gonna push me out of the bed in a minute, love,” Vera warned, eying at the edge she was precariously close to.

The red-head’s lips kicked up at the corners at the deliberate use of that endearment, making an approving humming sound.  “I have no intention of letting you go just yet, darling,” she said in-between the small, closed-mouth kisses she started to place across Vera’s collarbone. “Perhaps in an hour or so,” she added whilst she hooked her arm securely around her waist.

Vera rolled her eyes at the flirty wink she gave her but without any vehemence. It was not as if she had any plans herself to get up at this point and she gladly returned Rosamund’s heated kiss as the woman rolled on top of her, straddling her waist and, this time, Vera knew she was completely with her and behind her eyes she saw stars burst bright.


End file.
